There will only be a desert version during King of the Desert 2 - however, we might still adjust the amount of forest on the map, leading up to the tournament. If you subscribe to the workshop item, you will automatically get the newest version soon.

While the camels may look like an aesthetic addition, they actually offer more than that. The camels can be used to pinpoint your enemy (the same way you use relics) as they have a minimum distance from the player. Furthermore, the camels can be seen through the fog of war - and as units on the battlefield move close to them, they will run away (similar to how deer behave). This can, if your awareness is good enough, help you locate the enemy armies as well.

Longswordman

This should really only affect Chinese in a positive way as they can go to the first sheep right away and minimize TC idle time (for all other civs it only ensures the normal state of being able to send vills on sheep after building houses, but does not make any of them stronger).

How much it affects chinese and how strong they will be will need to be tested

Knight

On the one side they get a small boost, but on the other side it eliminates a bit of the advantage they used to have over other civs.

There are quite a few civs where this change impacts them a bit, like the Huns, who now never have to scout with their vills but can always immediately go to gather the goats.
Koreans, Teutons and Mongols are also slightly impacted in a negative way because their LOS bonus is slightly less impactful.
Persians is also slightly nerfed because they lose the advantage of never having a bad start due to starting with more resources.
some other civs that are slightly impacted: Indians (cheaper vills), Mayans(extra vill) and Berbers(faster vills)

All in all there's quite a few civs who are impacted by this, but most of the impact should be relatively small and only happen once every few games, so there shouldn't be a huge change in balance.

Active Member

- Woodlines are further away from the TC, and smaller than on Arabia/ECL_Arabia
- Boars are further away from TC than Arabia/ECL_Arabia
- Lions spawn closer to TC than on Arabia/ECL_Arabia (played on standard

Member

Halberdier

1) I'd prefer sheeps over goats, goats are pretty easy to overlook as the desert has basically the same colour as them. Also, it's not as clear if you just have the goat in vision or if the goat already "belongs" to you.
2) The map is more unfair than standard Arabia. Having no cliffs makes it overall less wallable, but most of the games I've played so far 1 player had more or less wallable map, other unwallable. Also removing the ponds and fairer wood distribution means, that generally there's at least 1 safe defensive woodline, which again helps the walled player.
Draft - as much as I like it - makes that rng even worse. Civs like spanish, burmese, maya might be amazing in scenarios with wallable map - which is like 50% and bad in the another 50% when their map isn't wallable. In the end, top draft picks like franks/indians might die vs 10th pick spanish, just because spanish get lucky with map, make a def castle and then abuse conqs vs opponent who doesn't have a wallable map.
3) So far I didn't realize why there are camels and ostriches.

Well Known Pikeman

1) I'd prefer sheeps over goats, goats are pretty easy to overlook as the desert has basically the same colour as them. Also, it's not as clear if you just have the goat in vision or if the goat already "belongs" to you.
2) The map is more unfair than standard Arabia. Having no cliffs makes it overall less wallable, but most of the games I've played so far 1 player had more or less wallable map, other unwallable. Also removing the ponds and fairer wood distribution means, that generally there's at least 1 safe defensive woodline, which again helps the walled player.
Draft - as much as I like it - makes that rng even worse. Civs like spanish, burmese, maya might be amazing in scenarios with wallable map - which is like 50% and bad in the another 50% when their map isn't wallable. In the end, top draft picks like franks/indians might die vs 10th pick spanish, just because spanish get lucky with map, make a def castle and then abuse conqs vs opponent who doesn't have a wallable map.
3) So far I didn't realize why there are camels and ostriches.

Well Known Pikeman

- Woodlines are further away from the TC, and smaller than on Arabia/ECL_Arabia
- Boars are further away from TC than Arabia/ECL_Arabia
- Lions spawn closer to TC than on Arabia/ECL_Arabia (played on standard

Woodlines do not spawn further away from the town center. There is the exact same forest percentage on this map as there is on most other Arabia maps (including the one from ECL). The forests do, however, spawn in clumps of 12 instead of 11 - this is done to decrease the chance of a bad map.

Boars had the chance of spawning two tiles further away - this has been reverted back to default.

Halberdier

@King_Marv most maps are way more wallable than Arabia (FR maps) and then there are some maps that are supposed to be played open (Land Madness, Chaos Pit, Acropolis..), it's ok if both players can wall, it's ok if neither of the players can wall, it's not ok if 1 player can wall, other can't. Standard Arabia can be this way, but due to cliffs and more woodlines, it's generally more wallable for both players. In KoTD 1, most of the games were full wall vs full wall, which isn't as entertaining, but it's fair. I don't mind if we're going back to standard Arabia with feudal full walls (and Chinese full stone wall) like KoTD1 or if the map will be unwallable for both, you can prepare for either of the options and pick civs accordingly, but that's not the case for KotD map.
I also agree that no ponds and no cliffs are better for the game, but given current KotD map, those changes are making it even worse.